Self-Discovery & Navigating the Unknown

Exploring personal growth, embracing uncertainty, and celebrating the journey from survival to stability.

Dear Fatima, 

I can echo your sentiment of feeling like an alien. Often in my childhood I felt that no one understood me (or cared to understand me) as deeply as I could understand them. I was often the giver in my relationships, rarely the taker. I remember always being the one my friends would go to for advice, and to hold space for them, but the moment I would ask for them to return the favor, it felt like they could never take care of me as emphatically as I could take care of them. I’ve since found better friendships, yours being one of the ones that goes the deepest, and I can’t believe we got so lucky as to exist at the same time as one another.

In the space we occupy, with ambitions like ours, huge milestones can often feel like just another rung in the ladder, so I wanted to take a moment to celebrate you. Hitting a six-figure income is no easy feat, and you should be immensely proud of yourself. I am not there yet (albeit closer than I think, as you often remind me), but seeing you do this makes it seem possible for me too. And not just possible, but doable. Within reach.

The act of letting go & surrendering reminds me of my studies in human design, and the fact that we are both projectors. According to human design, as projectors, we are not supposed to be burning the candle at both ends. No, our strength comes from resting & trusting the process. It’s not in our nature (and in fact it is detrimental) to force things into place or to hustle past the point of burnout. Instead, we find our clarity from taking a step back & seeing the big picture. Not that we don’t work hard, because we do. But things tend to fall into place serendipitously when we work smart. Have you noticed that? Because I certainly have. I take comfort in knowing that I do not chase, I attract. The more we tune into ourselves, the more others do, too. The opportunities & success follow.

I can completely relate with the feeling of “now what?”

When I got my job as an in-house designer, I felt like I was taking a step back in a lot of ways. Like, was I even still an entrepreneur if I had taken the easy way out? (I’ve since reconciled with these thoughts & know that entrepreneurship, in my case, is a part of who I am, regardless of my employment).

But at this time, I had taken a giant leap forward financially, and the safety & security that I felt for the first time was otherworldly. For the first time in 5 years, I wasn’t waking up anxious, wondering how I was going to pay my bills. I wasn’t constantly looking for freelance gigs at the cost of my mental health & sanity. And for almost a year & a half, I just floated around aimlessly. At certain points, I did work myself into a panic, thinking I had lost my creativity & motivation & that I would never get it back. But I needed that time to heal from constantly being in survival mode. And eventually, I had the capacity and desire to expand beyond my basic needs & into self-fulfillment.

I think the beauty of freedom is the luxury of exploration. When you are financially free & unburdened by the stress of meeting your basic needs, you have an abundance of time to do nothing. And after struggling for years to get to that point, it’s very possible you need that time to heal. 

Creatives, after all, desperately need that nothingness. We incorporate rest into our process. We take breaks from our work, we stare at the wall, we zone out. The nature of our work is very demanding—constant problem solving takes its toll on the brain, and at a certain point, we need time to reset.

Sometimes, the solution to our problems only comes when we approach them from a different perspective. Having the capacity to see another perspective often requires amounts of rest that we may deem unreasonable or excessive. But, that’s the whole point of trusting the process, and trusting yourself. Having blind faith that you’ve come this far, and you will go farther in time.

The thing you need to be doing will find you when you are least expecting it. It’s happened before, and it will again. Discipline is important, but you’ve made it to a point where you have the means to wander & be uncertain. You have the luxury of only needing to move when motivated.

It is a rather difficult balancing act between discipline & motivation, intention & complacency. There is no blueprint. Rather, you are the blueprint. The best thing that we can do is put our trust in ourselves to know when we need to adjust course. 

As for your next move, I don’t believe that it needs to be so black & white. Rather than private vs. public, why not mix intention with inspiration? Why not build in public? Instead of putting pressure on yourself to create a polished, disciplined persona, why not do it a little messy? 

I know we’ve both been feeling called to expand into the public eye again, & to build our personal brands. And lucky for us, the very nature of personhood is to be constantly evolving & changing form. Maybe instead of sharing the idea of ourselves, we start sharing the process of ourselves. 

I’ve come to realize that the idea of self is a moving target. Who’s to say we will ever reach that destination? Perhaps our legacies are our journeys.

I hope this has given you something to think about, as much as it’s given me! I love our conversations, and I don’t think either of us could run out of inspiration & motivation as long as we have each other. 

With love,

Taylor